Faith stopped at the threshold, swallowing over a huge lump that had formed in her throat. She hesitated and, bypassing Beatrice again, turned and cut her swollen eyes at Doug Bronson. “I can’t guarantee defiance or a rebellion, Mr. Bronson. I can’t even guarantee rage, but I can make you a promise. We won’t go quietly.”
Chapter 9
“None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free.”
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
US Route 220
Keyser, West Virginia
Approximately one year and four months before present day
While Lauren gazed out the passenger-side window at the bluish-green mountains, Alan navigated his car along the windy road, occasionally tapping the radio’s seek buttons in what was proving to be a failed attempt to find decent road music. After several thwarted efforts and battling mostly faint, spurious signals and static, he gave up the fight and smacked the power button with his knuckle.
“I love this area…always have,” Alan said. “The first time I came here was for a class field trip in the third grade. It’s hard to forget these roads, they’re like roller coasters. They still put butterflies in my stomach, although come to think of it, I think I got carsick and threw up on that field trip.”
“Gross,” Lauren hissed.
“The hills, people, and towns in this area are as unique as they come. You can find some of the best home-cooked meals around for dirt cheap at the mom-and-pop diners you come across. But they don’t have shit for radio stations.”
Lauren ran her finger over the window, drawing the shape of a heart in an area she had fogged up with her breath. “Unless you’re fan of country or bluegrass. I couldn’t help noticing there’s no shortage of those genres around here.”
Alan nodded. “True statement.”
“As much as you drive, I don’t know why you haven’t just bitten the bullet and subscribed to satellite radio,” Lauren said. “If you had it, you could listen to the channel that plays the hair-band music you love so much, all the time.”
“Do you remember what you used to call that music?” Alan asked, glancing over to her. “You know, before you got all grown up? When you were still my little girl?”
Lauren sighed at hearing the phrase little girl. “I used to call it Daddy music.”
Alan cocked his head to the side. “That’s cool. You still remember.”
“I remember everything. And by the way, those weren’t butterflies in your stomach. That was your nervous system reporting back to your brain that your organs are jostling around inside you while your body is strapped down with the car.”
“Thanks, L. I always wanted to know that. It’s good to know I can still count on you to be a purveyor of useless information.”
“It’s one of the many side effects of a proper education in the public school system,” she replied, smirking.
“You’ve gotten a better education outside of school. What they do on the inside isn’t education, it’s—”
“Indoctrination. Yes, I know.”
Alan looked confused. “Have I said it before or something?”
Lauren shrugged. “Only about a thousand times or more.”
“Damn. I repeat myself? I didn’t know I’d reached that age already.”
“You hit that mark a while back,” Lauren said. “Only recently have you gotten to the point where you not only repeat yourself, but you fail to recall you have.”
Alan sighed. “Old age is inescapable, I guess. Next thing you know, I won’t be able to control my bowels or use the bathroom on my own. It’s going to be embarrassing buying adult undergarments for the first time.”
Lauren turned to him. “Don’t say that. Okay? I don’t like it when you talk about getting old.”
“You never have.”
Lauren nodded, her brow furrowed. “It doesn’t sit well with me.”
“I’m not exactly thrilled about it either.” Alan pulled on his beard. “I mean, have you seen all the gray in this thing lately? Norman told me the other day, I needed to start using that Just for Men crap. At least the hair on my head remains a shade of brown—what’s left of it, anyway.”
Lauren placed her hand onto her father’s, whose hand grasped the shifter. “I don’t know if all daughters feel the same way about their fathers, but I’d actually like to keep you around for a while. So if you don’t mind, do you think you could try to find a way to slow down time? You’ve always been a good problem solver.”
“The apple didn’t fall far from the tree, L. Know that.”
“Yeah.”
“And you sound like your mother.”
“Don’t tell her that,” said Lauren. “She still swears up and down I’m ninety-nine-point-nine percent you.”
Alan squinted. “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll do what I can to find a way to decelerate the space-time continuum, if you be there to help me remember things I tend to forget in my old age.”
“Fine. I’ll be there for you. Just don’t ever ask me to wipe your butt or anything else gross.”
The road began to level off as Alan took a right-hand turn to remain on US Route 220, which sidelined the small watercourse of New Creek and passed by a pair of restaurants just before entering the town of Keyser. Not long after, a welcome sign came into view displaying a slogan touting ‘Friendliest Town in the USA’.
Lauren pointed over at a Walmart sign as they decelerated to the town’s speed limit. “Another one? I swear, those stores are everywhere now.”
“They’re not nearly as prevalent as Dollar Generals or Family Dollars are in the mountain state,” Alan explained. “A long time ago, there was a joke going around about the state flower of West Virginia being the satellite dish. Between those two retail chains, I believe they’ve got ‘farmervision’ beat, hands down.”
Alan pulled into a nearly vacant parking lot in front of an abandoned grocery store, then turned the car around to face the road.
Lauren motioned at the bustling Dollar General situated next door. “Speak of the devil. They probably put whatever was in that building behind us out of business.” She faced her father. “Why did we stop here? Do you need a Red Bull or something?”
Alan unbuckled his seat belt and opened the car door. “We’re crossing the Potomac River in a minute, L. I have to make us legal before we enter the people’s republic of Maryland.” He slid out of the seat and assumed a stance just outside. “Are you carrying?”
“Um, of course I am,” she affirmed, and then pointed to the backpack at her feet.
“Okay, good. Now, take it out, clear it, and then fieldstrip it.”
“Did I hear you correctly? You want me to fieldstrip it?”
Alan popped the trunk by pressing a button on the door and walked to the rear of the car. “You heard correctly.”
Lauren produced a muddled expression, but heeded Alan’s request. She unzipped her pack and removed the Glock handgun that had been a uniform companion to her since the day her father had given it to her. She released it from the retention holster, removed the magazine, and ejected the chambered round. She then detached the slide, and setting it aside, began disassembling it further until her father stopped her.
“That’s good, L,” Alan said, leaning in. He placed two black Pelican cases onto the driver’s seat, along with two combination-style padlocks. “Disassembled handguns in one, magazines and ammunition in the other.”
Lauren’s muddled look converted to one of angst. “You’re serious…”
Alan nodded in the affirmative. “As a heart attack.”
“Are you at least going to explain why?” Lauren placed the pieces of her pistol onto the foam padding in the Pelican case closest to her. “This seems extreme to me.”
“That’s because it is. Americans are entitled to their Second Amendment rights, but not all states feel the same way about the possession of firearms. Virginia is a traditional open-carry state and allows possession and plain sight�
��carrying of firearms even without a permit, but that’s a big no-no in other states with much stricter laws.”
Lauren set her pistol’s magazine into the other case, along with the lone round she’d evicted from the chamber. “I’ve never seen you open carry—in public anyway.”
Alan nodded. “I’m not a fan of open carry, for several reasons. The sight of a gun in today’s world tends to unnerve certain people. It didn’t used to be that way, though. Nowadays, unless that person is wearing a badge, it’s seldom seen or done. I think it’s because the overall perception of guns has gone full circle, and I attribute that to the lack of proper education, and how the media has portrayed, attacked, and persecuted firearms and firearm owners over the years, especially recently.”
“Guns don’t kill people, people kill people,” Lauren chanted. “It’s not that difficult of a concept to grasp—doesn’t even require organization of thought.”
Alan chuckled. “You’d be surprised. Bystanders’ perceptions aside, I’m not fond of open carrying because you give up a lot of tactical advantages. Sure, it can cause people to stare, needlessly panic and even harass you, but it can also make you a target. If I went into a 7-Eleven with a gun and the intent to rob the store and I saw someone carrying a gun on his side, my first instinct would be to shoot him first and eliminate the possibility of him drawing his weapon and shooting me. Carrying concealed is an advantage, and that’s why I’ve had a permit in our home state for longer than you have been alive.
“Some states reciprocate the permit, allowing me to carry there legally, as well. Other states don’t and most likely never will. They have laws making it difficult to even own a gun, much less transport one outside your house. They prohibit open carry without a permit, and it’s almost impossible to get a permit there unless you’ve been a victim of a violent crime.”
“Like us?”
Alan nodded, his brow lifting in reflection. “Yeah. Like us. There’s a host of laws declaring all sorts of locations off-limits, even if you have a valid permit. Trying to comprehend their firearms rulebook is like navigating a labyrinth using directions written by a two-year-old with a crayon…in Sanskrit.”
Lauren chuckled softly. “What about West Virginia? I’m guessing since we’ve been driving all day with concealed guns that they reciprocate, right?”
Alan unholstered his subcompact Glock 27 and set it on the seat. “West Virginia is one of a few states that’s chosen to enact permitless carry laws, referred to as ‘constitutional carry’. Anyone who’s legally permitted to possess a gun can carry it any way they choose to—even concealed. There’s only about nine or ten other states that have done this, and more are considering it. The right to self-defense using a firearm is a right, plain and simple. It should’ve never been allowed to develop into a legislative or judicial decision.”
“You said ‘anyone who’s legally permitted’,” said Lauren. “I’m still a minor, Dad. What’s that mean for me?”
“It means nothing. It means don’t worry about it. It means I’m responsible for you. You just keep being Lauren Russell and let me handle that,” Alan said firmly. He pulled his Ruger LCP from his front pocket, extracting the magazine. “Once you’re eighteen, you can possess a handgun legally. As far as concealing it, we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. Until then, well, you know how I feel.”
Lauren smiled, satisfied with her father’s reply. She reached for his Glock 27, unloaded it, and separated the slide from the receiver. “You own a lot of guns, Dad. I guess it’s a good thing we don’t live in one of those states with crappy gun laws.”
“I would never live anywhere constitutional rights were restricted or treated as null and void. Maryland is bad, but other states and most populated cities are way worse,” Alan said. “No open carry, no concealed carry, and in some places, guns have been completely outlawed—illegal, even if they’re unloaded or rendered inoperable. That’s why I won’t travel to most cities…the crime rates, murder in particular, tend to be a lot higher where guns are prohibited. Ironic, huh?”
“Ludicrous.”
“I don’t disagree. Today’s jaunt has us going into a restricted area. So we either leave our guns at home, or we lock them away in a container, unloaded, with the ammunition kept separate. Just like this.”
“That’s crazy. Without ammunition, the gun is useless—unless you throw it at somebody. How is anyone expected to defend themselves?”
“That’s the point—I don’t think they are,” Alan said, snapping the padlocks on the containers. “Some states even have regulations that spell it out. The common law rule certain states have adopted declares that outside your home, before using deadly force, any potential victim has the duty to retreat and avoid danger. They define the right of self-defense contrarily—it’s based on case law, not statute. The victims of an attack are usually required to prove they were in absolute, unequivocal fear for their lives and only used deadly force because they were left no other choice. And that’s not something easy to do, I imagine.”
Lauren shook her head in disgust. “Wow. So if a person shoots someone in self-defense because they were attacked and had no other choice, they have to prove their innocence in court?”
Alan took the two cases and placed them in the trunk, then returned to his seat in the car. “I’ve read articles about it. In common law cases, there’s no burden of proof for self-defense. Rather, it’s a burden of production. Now, I consider myself to be a fairly intelligent person, L, but I have no clue how to interpret that—except that it’s just a burden, an unnecessary burden. And while I’m sure innocent people don’t get locked up all the time, I know it happens, and that paints a very vivid picture for me.” Alan paused. “The laws don’t favor law-abiding citizens as they’re written. The only people affected negatively are those choosing to follow the law. Authoritarian gun laws, like the ones that exist on the other side of the river from here, haven’t prevented the nefarious from possessing guns they aren’t legally allowed to possess, and it hasn’t done a damn thing to stop folks from murdering each other.” Alan moved the car back onto the road and pointed it north toward the Potomac River and the Keyser-McCoole Memorial Bridge. “It’s not going to change anytime soon, either. Unless criminals decide to have a change of heart.”
“What a great country we live in,” Lauren droned. “We’re about to cross into a state that basically denies us the right to defend ourselves as human beings—because guns are bad and kill people. Such nonsense.”
“It is nonsense. And I’m glad I have a daughter who can see it for what it is.”
“Yeah, well, someone, a male role model sitting in the car with me—who shall remain nameless, removed my blinders a while ago. Ever since then, I tend to see through just about everything.”
Alan smirked. “I raised you to be a critical thinker,” he said. “You gifted yourself with X-ray vision. All things considered though, I don’t like going places where my rights are infringed upon. Kind of makes me not want to go.”
“Kind of makes me want to say to hell with them and carry my gun anyway,” Lauren spat. “How’s anyone going to know?”
“They have their ways,” Alan replied. “Want to hear a story?”
Lauren raised a brow. “Do I have a choice?”
“Nope. You see, not all, but some law enforcement agencies have license plate readers installed on the trunks of their cruisers,” Alan began. “If we pass one, I’ll point it out to you. They’re high-speed digital cameras that sense motion and take photographs of every plate passing by. Most of them are connected to criminal background check and permit holder databases. If the car is registered to you and you have warrants, or if you’ve been red-flagged for some reason and your name pops up, they can stop you, detain you, and even arrest you.”
“So they just track and take pictures of everyone on the road? That’s entrapment.”
“It’s been considered a violation of our Fourth Amendment rights to privacy,” Ala
n said. “But no court has ever ruled against them, to my knowledge. I read somewhere that for every one million license plates scanned, less than fifty are tied to serious crimes, which supposedly was the sole purpose for the devices having come into being.”
“Big brother is watching you,” said Lauren, reminded of passages she had read in 1984. “And he’s everywhere.”
Alan nodded. “Orwell turned out to be awfully prophetic, didn’t he? Government surveillance has become a lot more prevalent over the years. I remember a time when only a chosen few had security cameras—now, they’re everywhere. Inside every store, on every building, at every intersection, and on every car. People fill their houses with them and tie them to the internet for security or other personal reasons. We even carry them willingly on our cell phones, tablets, and laptops.”
“That—and people can’t even go hiking anymore without wearing some stupid harness with a GoPro attached to it,” Lauren griped. “It’s so annoying.”
Alan nodded. “I’ve seen plenty of drones flying around in the woods lately, too. Big brother exists everywhere now; it’s hard to go anywhere you’re not under someone’s watchful eye.”
“Or something’s watchful eye.”
“People have been programmed to trust the system and give it everything they know, because it’s considered the right thing to do. Some states even have what they call ‘joint coordination and analysis’ centers. They preach the ‘see something, say something’ mantra and offer monetary rewards for information for possible terrorist activity or indicators of violent crime. Even human eyeballs are cameras, now.”
“I used to have a teacher who rewarded tattletales.”
“It’s one and the same,” Alan said. “She could probably get a job with the government.”
Lauren giggled.
“All of us are tracked—everywhere we go. Can you think of any device that doesn’t have a GPS chip in it now? My new laptop has one, and so does the ham radio I just put in your mom’s truck. People can call me paranoid all they like, but that kind of technology—as predominant as it has become—can be manipulated by anyone and exploited by those with the power to do so. It scares the hell out of me.”
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